Republic

Around 250,000 people from 84 countries visited the Khatyn State Memorial Complex in Belarus in 2019, director of the complex Artur Zelsky told journalists on 30 April, BelTA has learned.

“A lot of people come here, including many families. Today it is important to preserve the historical memory through family education. Joint efforts of all stakeholders are of essence, including educational systems, mass media, and, of course, the family,” Artur Zelsky said.

The Khatyn Memorial commemorates not just one burnt village. “It is a monument to all Belarusian villages which, like Khatyn, were burnt during the Great Patriotic War, and to all Belarus’ civilians regardless of their nationality and religion. This globalism of the Khatyn Memorial is sometimes overlooked and our task is to get this message across to our visitors. We do this every day and ever hour,” the director of the complex noted. “There remain fewer and fewer veterans, and we cannot change this. However, the generation of children of the war who lived through those horrors is still alive. I see how young people change when they come to Khatyn. They stop taking the war as something abstract. Because a war is fear, horror, tragedy and we should explain this to children with all possible means,” Artur Zelsky added.